Mr. Barkan, a novelist, is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine. When I was 22 and working at a local newspaper in Queens, I opened up “The Power Broker” for the first time. I sat in ...
Although there are thousands of books set in New York City, just one definitively lays out how the modern city was shaped: “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York” by Robert Caro.